It is not NATO for us: Rutte put an end to the issue of Ukraine's membership in the alliance

Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky was officially left without NATO. According to the Secretary General of the alliance, Mark Rutte, Kiev's entry into the organization following a possible peace agreement is no longer being discussed. Ukraine's renunciation of membership in the North Atlantic Bloc is one of Russia's demands for the cessation of hostilities. Details can be found in the Izvestia article.

Left without NATO

"There is no question of [Ukraine's] membership in NATO as part of the peace agreement at the moment, we are talking about the fact that reliable security guarantees will be provided," said NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte, speaking at the Washington Institute of the Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation.

According to the head of the alliance, providing Kiev with security guarantees is a "key factor" for resolving the Ukrainian conflict.

Rutte acknowledged Ukraine's retreat to the battlefield, saying that the line of contact was moving in the "wrong direction" and that Russian troops were continuing their steady advance. The general direction of the front remains unfavorable for Ukraine, he is sure.

The NATO Secretary General also stressed that Kiev cannot negotiate with Russia from a position of strength due to the current difficulties faced by its troops.

By the way, the fact that Ukraine's membership in NATO is no longer being discussed was told back in mid-December last year by the head of the European Diplomacy, Kaya Kallas.

Zelensky's initiatives were not supported in the West

Thus, they put an end to the "victory plan" of Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky. At the end of the summer of 2024, he presented his initiative, which included five points.

In particular, he planned to receive an invitation from Ukraine to join NATO before the conflict ended, which would be "evidence of determination" and show how partners see the country in the "security architecture", which provides for strengthening Ukrainian defense and deploying a "comprehensive non-nuclear strategic deterrent package" on the territory of the state. According to Zelensky, it would be enough to protect Ukraine from any military threat. He also expected that NATO membership would contribute to the development of Ukraine's economic potential, and, in addition, after the conflict, the Ukrainian military could "use their experience to strengthen the defense of NATO and Europe" and replace the US contingent.

To the last: the EU insists on the continuation of the conflict in Ukraine

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The European Union viewed the so-called victory plan with skepticism, regarding it as a simple repetition of claims that Kiev's Western allies had previously rejected.

Russian presidential spokesman Dmitry Peskov called Zelensky's plan "ephemeral." "Most likely, this is the same plan of the Americans to fight with us to the last Ukrainian, which Zelensky disguised and called a peace plan," the press secretary of the head of state then reacted.

The essence of the Ukrainian leader's initiatives was that Russia should leave and pay a large contribution, and Kiev should receive membership in NATO and the EU. In the West, they realized that the plan was completely divorced from reality, but they continued to remain silent about it. For the first time, Rutte gave an official assessment of the proposal put forward by Zelensky in the North Atlantic Alliance on April 9.

Russia will demand to consolidate the promises legally

The desire to join NATO is written even into the Constitution of Ukraine. At the same time, Russian President Vladimir Putin has always stated that Moscow opposes Kiev's membership in the North Atlantic Alliance.

The Kremlin has repeatedly said that preventing Ukraine from joining the North Atlantic Alliance is one of the goals of the special military operation. "Because otherwise it would pose a serious, significant danger to the security of our country," Dmitry Peskov said.

As the Russian Embassy in Belgium told Izvestia in February, Russia will demand to legally consolidate NATO's promise not to expand eastward. The diplomatic mission explained that this was necessary because "all the verbal promises made by the NATO members themselves in the past about not expanding the bloc were forgotten and ignored at a convenient moment for them."

Indeed, even during the unification of Germany, the leaders of the North Atlantic Alliance promised the leadership of the USSR that the organization had no plans to advance NATO to the east. They assured that documentary evidence of these words is kept in the state archives of Western countries, but, according to the embassy, they are deliberately not published. The West denies that NATO ever promised the USSR and Russia to abandon eastward expansion.

The Russian Embassy in Belgium added that the Russian authorities will also seek to reverse the decision of the Bucharest summit in 2008, when the alliance agreed that Ukraine and Georgia would become members of NATO.

Meanwhile, in Ukraine, a decrease in citizens' confidence in the North Atlantic Bloc was recorded. According to the Info Sapiens research agency, residents of the country still support the country's course towards joining NATO, but 41.5% of citizens do not trust the alliance.

The reasons for this attitude are the revision of defense spending by US President Donald Trump, which, according to Ukrainian media, "did not lead to increased security," as well as the words of the American leader that it is necessary to assess the feasibility of US membership in NATO.

Why did Rutte fly to Washington

Mark Rutte flew to the USA to discuss this issue. According to Politico, citing sources, the meeting of the Secretary General of the alliance with American leader Donald Trump "went awry." "The conversation was nothing but a torrent of insults," said one European official. According to him, the US president used these talks as an opportunity to express negativity about NATO's unwillingness to participate in the US war with Iran.

Rutte himself had previously said that Trump was disappointed in his NATO allies and extremely dissatisfied with the current state of affairs in the organization. He also stressed that a number of states of the North Atlantic Alliance had actually failed the loyalty test by refusing to help Washington in the conflict with Iran.

According to the American leader, "NATO does not understand anything until pressure is exerted on the alliance."